Latest news with #ThePlague
Daily Mirror
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Rob Rinder rakes over history's most dramatic events in a new 5 series
TV presenter Rob Rinder and historian Ruth Goodman team up to look at The Plague, the Great Fire of London and the Blitz in a fascinating new series In an eye-opening series, The Great Plague With Rob Rinder & Ruth Goodman, on tonight (July 10th, on 5 at 9pm), they uncover secret plague burials, strange cures and surprising theories in this fascinating look at history's most dramatic events. Rob and historian Ruth dive into three life-altering moments - the Plague, the Great Fire of London, and the Blitz - looking at each of them through the eyes of both the rich and the poor. They uncover gripping stories of survival, resilience, and reveal what difference wealth made, and whether it was ultimately luck, grit, or the size of your bank balance that mattered most when disasters hit. In the first instalment, exploring the Plague, the documentary explores how scientists now believe body lice spread the plague, not just fleas carried by rats. Rob and Ruth also discover that underwear may have made a difference. The rich and poor wore similar undergarments, but the rich changed theirs daily - would have helped reduce infection. For a remedy, the rich favoured pricey concoctions like 'London Treacle' (walnut, rue, salt and fig), while the poor used homemade methods, like herbs. There are also modern-day parallels to Covid, like the strict quarantining, where any suspected plague sufferers had to be locked up in their house for 40 days. Rob says: 'What drew me to this series was exactly that: this chance to look closely at individuals living through some of the most terrifying, cataclysmic moments in British history — but to do it with humanity. I felt emotionally connected to people who lived 400 years ago. I never expected to, but I did. Deeply.' The Great Plague With Rob Rinder & Ruth Goodman is airing on 5 tonight at 9pm There's plenty more on TV tonight - here's the best of the rest... TODAY AT THE GREAT YORKSHIRE SHOW LIVE, 5, 8pm For two nights at a sprawling ground in Harrogate is the 166th Great Yorkshire Show, the biggest agricultural show in the UK. Farmers and producers have been working towards this event for the entire year, so will be proudly competing with their best animals and wares. It's not all fun and games - reputations and businesses are at stake. Julia Bradbury and Jules Hudson experience everything on offer, capturing all the drama. They're joined by familiar faces Dave and Rob Nicholson of Cannon Hall Farm, who proudly showcase their prized shire horse, Saffron, along with her stunning foal, Yorkshire Rose. The brothers are quietly confident about their chances of winning a coveted first-place red rosette, but as always, it all hinges on how the horses - and brothers - perform in front of the judges on the day. Julia dives into the delicious world of cheese with food expert Nigel Barden, while Jules explores the machinery section and Julia joins the 'People's Pig' competition. OUTRAGEOUS, U&DRAMA, 9pm As this gossipy, glossy period drama about the real life Mitford sisters continues, the family is about to be hit by their biggest scandal yet. The episode starts with a glaring red flag, when eldest daughter Nancy (Bessie Carter) says: 'Of course there were bound to be disagreements between us about things like politics, but nothing that could fundamentally threaten the deep bonds of family, surely?' Marve and Farve have received a letter from Unity (Shannon Watson), who is in Munich, excited that she met Adolf Hitler and talked to him for about half an hour. 'Good lord, we can't have two sisters both mistresses to fascist leaders, what are the chances?' says Nancy. Diana (Joanne Vanderham), driving the car that boyfriend Oswald Mosley bought her, heads to Munich to keep an eye on things. But before long, Unity's attempts to impress her friends in Germany cause an international scandal and she becomes 'the most hated woman in Britain', causing untold grief for the Mitfords. EMMERDALE, ITV1, 7.30pm Sarah stubbornly refuses to rest after her hysterectomy despite Charity's protests. Eager to be distracted, Sarah heads to the garage and offers to help Kammy. Woozy and disorientated, Joe wakes up in a makeshift hospital room to see a menacing Crowley looming over him. The next day a hungry and irritable Gabby is annoyed that her car still isn't working properly. When Laurel demands a private word with Vinny, he worries which part of his conversation with Kammy she might have overheard. EASTENDERS, BBC1, 7pm Peter starts his first day on the fruit and veg stall, but refuses to speak to Laurn about her kiss with Zack. Penny gives Lauren a pep talk ahead of Jimmy's gene test results. Harry is horrified when Kojo makes a confession. Linda worries that Elaine is doing too much after her heart attack. Anna returns from Spain and has a go at George for keeping her in the dark about the divorce and the sale of The Vic. CORONATION STREET, ITV1, 9pm Maria calls at the police station and reports Gary missing. When Kit reveals they've had a report from the hospital of an unidentified coma patient, Lisa wonders if it could be Gary. Maria confides in Sarah that Gary hasn't made any bank transactions since 23rd June. Kevin lies to Carl that he's been given the all clear from cancer. Dee-Dee collects Laila from James. As she celebrates with Laila's Godparents and thanks Billy for a lovely christening, will James figure it out?
Time of India
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Kim Kardashian to star in live-action 'Bratz' film
Reality TV star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian is reportedly in talks to star in a live-action film based on the popular Bratz fashion doll toy line. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project is being developed by Amazon MGM, with Charlie Polinger and Lucy McKendrick penning the script. The Bratz toy line, launched in 2001, has reportedly sold over 200 million dolls worldwide. A previous live-action film adaptation, released in 2007, underperformed at the box office. Despite this, the brand remains popular, and the new film aims to bring the characters to life for a modern audience. Kardashian has been busy with various projects, including her recent appearance in the 12th season of American Horror Story. She is currently filming Ryan Murphy's Hulu legal drama series 'All's Fair', which she also produces. Additionally, she is set to star and produce the forthcoming Netflix comedy movie 'The 5th Wheel'. Charlie Polinger and Lucy McKendrick are writing the script for the live-action Bratz film. Polinger has marked his writing and directorial debut with 'The Plague', which screened at Cannes earlier this year. McKendrick is also set to write, direct, and star in the feature film Fangs, alongside Toni Collette and Joel Edgerton.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Plague' Review: Joel Edgerton in a Thrilling Drama That Captures the Terror of Adolescent Masculinity
Charlie Polinger opens his thrilling and uneasy directorial debut feature The Plague with an arresting sequence that quickly establishes the haunting undertones of this adolescent psychological thriller. The ambient, muffled sound of sloshing water is set against a shot of the bottom of a pool. One by one, swimmers drop into the massive indoor basin. Their spindly legs move awkwardly as they try to get in sync. It's 2003, and these are the middle-school-aged attendees of the Tom Lerner Water Polo camp. From this angle, Polinger and his cinematographer Steven Breckon make these kids look like phantasmic figures. An eerie sense of unreality runs through The Plague, which premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard sidebar. Working from a screenplay he also wrote, Polinger uses horror conventions to tease out the psychic terror and intimidation of pre-teen social codes. In the age of renewed questions about and considerations of the manosphere, The Plague is a prescient title. Polinger's film is not as dark as Netflix's popular miniseries Adolescence, but it does circle similarly unsettling themes — like the way the terms and tenets of masculinity are dictated by arbitrary rules, or the cost of nonconformity among young men. More from The Hollywood Reporter Cannes: 'Militantropos' Directors on Identity and the Limits of Art: "The War Has Become Part of Us" Cannes: Salty Pictures Sets Martial Arts Drama '8 Limbed Dragon,' Starring UFC Fighter Jingliang Li (Exclusive) Ethan Coen, Wife and Writing Partner Tricia Cooke on Lesbian B-Movies, Trump, Re-Teaming With Joel Key performances carry The Plague and alleviate the occasional strain of overwrought direction. Relative newcomers Everett Blunck (stellar in Griffin in the Summer) and Kayo Martin portray opposite ends of youthful angst with an engaging sincerity and terrifying accuracy. Martin, with the subtlety of his judging expressions, seems especially made for his role as Jake, the resident cool kid who weaponizes his sharp attention to detail. The actor plays well against Blunck, who portrays Ben, a new camper trying to figure out where he fits among the various cliques. An anxiety-inducing sound design (by Damian Volpe) and score (by Johan Lenox), coupled with an appropriately icy visual palette built on grays and blue, help tell Polinger's nail-biting story. When Ben (Blunck) arrives at the water polo camp, he quickly notices the hold that Jake (Martin) has on the other boys. The teen with the mess of blonde hair functions as a ring leader and, with his approval, Ben becomes part of the crew. The other boys call Ben, who just moved from Boston, 'Soppy' on account of the fact that he garbles the 't' in the word 'stop.' One thing Polinger makes clear early on is how closely Jake scrutinizes the other boys — noticing minor characteristics that differentiate them from one another — and uses those observations to mock them. This skill keeps Jake in power, making him an intimidating person to everyone, including the boys' coach Daddy Wags (Joel Edgerton, in a brief but effective turn). Ben watches the others too, and he quickly picks up that no one hangs out with Eli (Kenny Rasmussen, also excellent). The quiet child keeps mostly to himself, eating lunch in the locker room and occasionally sleeping there too. According to the other kids, Eli has the plague, a vague disease that allegedly begins with a rash and renders the infected unable to socially function. Jake warns Ben to stay away from Eli and to wash his body should he accidentally get too close. In a clever move, Polinger never establishes if the plague is real because even if it isn't, the fear it sows is. The remainder of The Plague follows Ben as he tries to reconcile social acceptance with his own moral code. He understands that people shouldn't be exiled for their differences and yet the idea of losing his place within the hierarchy keeps him up at night. Blunck deftly portrays Ben's inner turmoil and the anxiety his journey produces. Polinger deploys jump scares, intimate close-ups (especially of Jake and Ben staring at one another) and elements of body horror to recast these coming-of-age dilemmas as high-stakes, nightmarish challenges. When the director widens his scope, to survey the broader social behaviors on display, The Plague adopts a primal urgency and the film possesses the feverish energy of William Golding's Lord of the Flies or Claire Denis' Beau Travail. In one of those scenes Polinger observes the boys during lunch, excitedly speaking over each other and laughing. The camera ominously cuts (editing is by Henry Hayes and Simon Njoo) between views of the group and the faces of individual campers. For the most part, they are children having a good time, but if you look closely you can see a flash of panic beneath the cheerful visages. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Horror Buffs at Image Nation Abu Dhabi, Spooky Pictures Love 'Cool Shit' and Have Unleashed ‘The Plague' at Cannes
High concept, low budget, straight-forward creative lens – that is how Emirati studio Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles-based genre label Spooky Pictures target movies under their partnership that is bringing one of its features to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time. No need to mince words either. 'The creative mandate is: cool shit,' producer and Spooky co-founder Steven Schneider (Pet Sematary, Paranormal Activity, Insidious) tells THR. 'We also always just look for things that are original and will surprise us,' adds producer and Spooky co-founder Roy Lee (It, The Ring, A Minecraft Movie). 'The guiding light when we start out is that we want to make a movie that somebody thinks is their favorite movie of that year or of all time.' More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Highest 2 Lowest': Spike Lee on Trump, Cannes Scandals and the Knicks' Championship Chances: "We're Going to Win!" UTA's Rich Klubeck Is Juggling Wes Anderson, Kelly Reichardt and Ethan Coen at Cannes Jafar Panahi: The World's Most Acclaimed Dissident Filmmaker The duo found a partner in crime in Image Nation CEO Ben Ross, bringing together what Schneider calls three 'historical horror buffs' on a mission. 'Steven and I had been threatening to do this for probably 15-plus years, and the three of us have known each other for a really long time,' recalls Ross. 'So when the two of them discussed launching something together, it was pretty easy just to go and do it, because we know genre films and like the business.' This year, the dynamic trio for the first time ever hit the Croisette with a movie premiering in the Cannes selection, namely New York-based Charlie Polinger's debut feature The Plague, which debuted in the Un Certain Regard section on Friday. Its cast features an ensemble of new faces, including Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin and Kenny Rasmussen, and Joel Edgerton (Boy Erased, Black Mass, Loving), who also has a producer credit on the film via his banner Five Henrys Productions, along with additional producers Hellcat and The Space Program. 'At an all-boys water polo camp, a socially anxious 12-year-old is pulled into a cruel tradition targeting an outcast with an illness they call 'The Plague',' reads the ominous synopsis. 'But as the lines between game and reality blur, he fears the joke might be hiding something real.' Edgerton was already attached to the project when the partners boarded it. His involvement as a producer mirrors the starring and producing roles that David Dastmalchian had on the Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes-directed Image Nation-Spooky horror box office hit Late Night With the Devil, which in its prologue is framed as a documentary investigating an unexplained event that occurred on Halloween night 1977 during a live broadcast of a late-night talk show, and which delivered IFC Films' highest-grossing opening weekend ever. Dastmalchian and the companies are now replicating his double duty on their recently unveiled new feature, The Shepherd. 'That dual role is incentivizing,' explains Schneider. 'Nobody's getting rich up front on these movies. We are, I think, more than fair for low-budget movies in terms of what we are prepared to pay people. But we are trying desperately to keep the above the line as minimal as possible.' Adds Ross: 'We also try to make all the actors feel like they are real partners. They are doing these things for significantly less of a payday than they can normally get. Everything goes on screen when we design the financial plans for our films. We treat the actors as partners, so they are significant stakeholders in the back end. We all win together, or nobody wins.' How else does The Plague fit into the partnership's business model? 'The model is basically $5 million net budgets or below, big concept, well executed, directors that we believe in and want to bet on – whether they are first-timers or established, and not cast contingent in the usual way,' summarizes Schneider. The three veterans trust their taste and instincts and all use words such as 'different,' 'fresh,' 'original,' and 'fun' when discussing what kind of projects they look for. Explains Lee: 'If we read the first act of a script and could predict everything that is going to happen, it's actually a movie we don't want to do. We want the movies that veer in different directions.' The content can originate from anywhere. 'As far as the business perspective, we operate under the premise that content is global,' Ross tells THR. 'So we make it for a global audience, whether it's in Arabic, which a lot of Image Nation stuff is, or in English or Spanish,' like one project currently in the works. One fundamental thought the partners all share is that creative, artistic, and financial considerations are not mutually exclusive. 'Our movies can be artistic and commercial at the same time,' emphasized Schneider. 'They just have to be scary. They have to be spooky.' Is there a slate goal, such as a certain number of movies the three target per year? 'We don't have a set goal. We just judge things as they come in,' emphasizes Lee. 'When we love something, we want to try and make it.' That has meant that, in contrast to most studios' operations, the partnership has made all movies it has decided to develop. One thing that makes The Plague different is that it will be the partnership's first film to be sold upfront, with that process starting at the Cannes market, where UTA and Cinetic will be co-selling the U.S. rights and AGC International handling the rest of the world. Chloe Okuno's psychological thriller Watcher was the team's first feature. Among their upcoming films are Oddity director Damian McCarthy's supernatural horror movie Hokum, starring Adam Scott (Severance), which is currently in post, Randall Okita's Menace, starring Isabel May (1883), and Archangel, written and directed by Bryan Edward Hill and starring Conor Leslie (Titans, Man in the High Castle) Greg Hovanessian (Cardinal), and Alyshia Ochse (True Detective). Given the entertainment industry's various issues, what is a key hurdle for the Image Nation-Spooky team? 'The biggest challenge is finding great projects,' highlights Lee. 'Because there are so many things out there in the marketplace and there is a lot of competition, you just have to be able to discern the ones that will rise above the others and that will be great.' One promise that can make a difference is trust in the creatives and their vision. 'We really try to be completely collaborative with our filmmakers,' says Ross. 'We want to show them that we believe in them. We really don't dictate a lot. We are all going to work together.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How ‘The Plague' Director Charlie Polinger Used the Horror Genre to Capture the ‘Chaos and Anxiety' of Male Adolescence
'The Plague' filmmaker Charlie Polinger simply wanted to make a film that actually reflected his adolescent experiences. 'I see a lot of movies about 12 year old boys that are often either a little more 'Goonies'-style biking around at night [that are about] this kind of carefree feeling or a little more bro-y hangout kind of movies. My sense of being 12 was it was more like [a] social anxiety hellscape,' Polinger told Executive Awards Editor Steve Pond at TheWrap's Cannes Conversations in partnership with Brand Innovators. 'You see that [represented] more commonly, I think, in movies about women or about young girls, [movies] like 'Carrie' and 'Raw' and 'Eighth Grade.' You don't see it as often in films about boys because there's a certain vulnerability to [being] the object of terror or to [feel] insecurity in your body. There's sort of a fear of that vulnerability being shown [when it is] centered around masculinity,' Polinger observed. 'I thought it could be exciting to kind of take a genre that I've seen more with women and apply it to a story about boyhood.' The resulting film, 'The Plague,' marks Polinger's feature directorial debut. It follows Ben (Everett Blunck), a young boy at a water polo summer camp for boys headed by an adult male instructor (Joel Edgerton). Ben quickly finds himself torn between his fear of being ostracized and his conscience when the camp's other boys begin to bully Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a fellow campmate whose skin condition prompts his bullies to declare that he has 'the plague' and run screaming loudly in the other direction whenever he comes near. 'I'm actually a very bad swimmer,' Polinger revealed with a laugh when asked how he conceived the film's story. 'It came from experiences I had going to some all-boys summer camps, and my experiences at those and my experiences being that age in school and in general — and wanting to tell a story that felt like it really immersed the audience in the subjective experience of being a 12-year-old boy and all of the sort of chaos and anxiety that comes with that.' Polinger wrote the film while he was staying at his parents' house during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was not until Edgerton agreed to star in it years later that Polinger was finally able to put 'The Plague' together. 'I think at first [Joel] was actually inquiring about directing it, and I was like, 'I really have to do this one,'' Polinger recalled. 'He was [then] generous enough to offer to act in it and help produce it, just to help get it made. That was really the thing that took us over the edge and [helped us find] the financing.' While Polinger notes that 'The Plague' is not a 'traditional horror film,' the thing that always excited him about the project was the chance it would give him to immerse viewers in its young protagonist's perspective — where things that adult viewers might not think are a big deal feel like they have 'like and death stakes.' 'That's where the genre stuff came from,' Polinger said, before revealing that he even looked at war films for reference. 'Every single glance and every whisper feels dangerous,' the director explained. 'I really was just trying to think about how Ben, the protagonist, would feel in any given moment, and [I tried to] find ways to cinematically evoke his interior state through the external world.' Watch the full video below. The post How 'The Plague' Director Charlie Polinger Used the Horror Genre to Capture the 'Chaos and Anxiety' of Male Adolescence | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
